Google’s Chromecast team rapidly expanding after explosive launch

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After the incredibly successful launch of the Chromecast, Google is looking to quickly expand staffing for the fledgling project.

You’d be hard pressed to find a Chromecast on the shelves of any electronics store right now, and unless you’re willing to pay more than double for one sold by a third party on Amazon, you won’t find them available online either. Google’s latest hardware launch was met with significantly more success than they were prepared for, as many retail outlets reported they were sold out within hours of the HDMI dongle hitting the shelves. While production ramps up to restock as quickly as possible, and developers scramble to work with the beta APIs to integrate Chromecast support into their apps, Google’s jobs page has lit up with a list of new positions available on the Chromecast team.

It’s beyond clear that the Mountain View company wasn’t prepared for this HDMI stick to be such a huge hit, and given their previous struggles with getting their hardware into the living room it’s not hard to understand why. Google seems quick to respond, however, and their hiring board shows that they are staffing for long term success with this project.

The Chromecast team is currently hiring for Developer Advocates, Developer Relations, Technical Writers, and Developer Programs Engineers. Most of these are positions that handle third party developers working to either add Chromecast support to their app or to build entirely new apps around the Chromecast service. This is the kind of staffing you do when there’s been a significant response from developers, and since Chromecast works across so many platforms there’s a need for multiple people in these positions with skills that apply directly to those platforms.

It looks like there’s plenty of positive signs all around for Chromecast, except perhaps the most important one. It’s been a couple of weeks now since anyone has seen the hardware on shelves. Employees in retail locations either turn people away or turn them to Apple TV every day, often several times a day depending on where you are. The next week or two will be critical for Chromecast, but as long as Google can get them on and keep them on the shelves it looks like they have everything else under control.